It’s been another busy, busy week – I still seem to be doing just about everything around here! It’s also been a pretty wet and miserable week – great! Soaking trousers and a soaking, smelly, muddy dog.
Penelope and I had an exciting outing on Tuesday morning. After delivering Annabelle to school in Warwick I trotted home just in time to take Penny to her first post-surgical checkup on her finger. Those that matter were suitably impressed with her progress – everything seems to be going to plan. She has had the large, bulky bandage replaced with a slim-line version which allows her considerably more movement and flexibility and she’s also been given a number of hand and finger exercises which I’ve seen her do once but I am sure she’s repeating them every couple of minutes. She also has a lovely, moulded splint to wear at night. This coming Tuesday she has her next/final checkup when hopefully she will have the stitches removed – back to normal, we hope. Perhaps then I can have a day or two off.
We had Jessie for an adventure and sleep-over on Friday – we took her to see The BFG at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford as a Christmas present. What a great performance!
I am running out of superlatives with which to describe our outings to Stratford. Aside from one occasion many years ago which my sister Sallie and her husband will remember, we’ve never been less than delighted and, indeed, overwhelmed with the many productions we’ve seen. And the BFG was no different. Absolutely outstanding!
I did wonder how they were going to do the various scenes when Sophie and the BFG are on stage together. Puppets was the obvious answer, puppets of the sort we first saw many years ago in Warhorse. And, as in Warhorse, the puppeteers soon “disappear” as one becomes more and more engrossed with the action on the stage. The cast were brilliant and the staging was phenomenal, down to and including the choreography of the scene-changers as they “danced” and swirled with their props as they moved from one scene to another. All in all an excellent production which Jessie absolutely loved. And so did we!
My good friend Peter Taylor shared a comment recently which I found amusing. For my non-UK reader, this applies to movement between two UK political parties, the Conservatives (full of looney right-wing Brexit-supporting dimwits) and Reform (full of even loonier right-wing racist nutters led by the chief proponent of Brexit, Nigel Farage). Funnily enough, during the Brexit debate Farage promised he would leave the UK and live abroad if Brexit was a failure. He’s still here so I guess it proves he’s an astute politician – lying is his second language.
Many former Conservative MPs, several of whom were ministers in the Conservative governments responsible for the current state of decrepit Britain, some of whom lost their seats at the last General Election have decided to abandon the looney Conservatives and join the even loonier Reform Party.
Given the “quality” of those who have so far defected, I am guessing it’s almost certainly true.
And finally, there have been a plethora of amusing memes doing the rounds concerning Mr Trump’s delight and excitement at being given the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to María Corina Machado – I’m sure you’ve seen many of these but it’s clear that a lot of people have too much time on their hands. I was especially struck by our Prime Minister’s awarding of his Cycling Proficiency Badge.
Meanwhile, keep breathing, keep happy, keep smiling, keep exercising, be good, be careful, and keep safe. And, be gentle to wasps and bees – we need all the pollinators we can get. And, hold your loved ones close.
Lots of love to you all,
Greg